Partial Mash help!

[patrck17]

Hey guys I am going to be attempting my first Partial Mash today and I am confused about something.

In my homebrew for dummies book it says that after the mash-out I need to strain out the wort and rinse the grains, apparantly this process is called lautering and sparging. However I seem to remember something about pooring hot wort into anything will cause lots of oxidation and make the beer stale. If I do this step it will involve me basicly taking the wort off at around 165 degrees, pouring it through a strainer into a brew bucket, then pouring the wort back over the grains back into my brewpot, than sparging hot water over the grains. I do not have any all grain equipment that may be necessary for this process. Think I am good to go? If I skip this step I will simply mash the grains at around 155 for 60 minutes and then add extract, which seems to me a lot like sparging. (This is what the instruction kit from Austin Homebrew says to do, note that I am hesitant to follow these instructions exactly the way they are written.)

Sorry to be so long winded, if you guys could tell me what you think that would be great.

Patrick

 

[El Pistolero]

IMHO, given that you're only doing a partial mash, I'd think you will be OK to just go ahead and strain the grains as you've described...just be careful to splash as little as possible.

The main effect of hot-side aeration is to cause your beer to stale prematurely. If you're planning on drinking it fairly quickly then it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Beer Snob]

Question.... I am reading about AG from anything I can get my hands on... actually I am reading and re-reading.... seems complicated to me (reading Palmer's book as well as the second Joy of homebrew)

With extracts you WANT to areate the wort to pitch the yeast. So why would aereating in the situation be a problem?

 

[casebrew]

You aereate cold wort before pitching the teast. Hot side aereation is different, and not desirable....I guess. Aereation seems to me to be the most contentious issue to homebrewers. Maybe someday my palate may be educated enough to worry about it. Meantime, I'm still screwing up my mash/sparging. Whatever, it's all good beer.

 

[vtfan99]

When sparging, whether it be AG or partial mash, you do not need to worry about hot side aeration. Why? Because you will be boiling the wort after you sparge, so any absorbed oxygen will be boiled out, which is why a vigorous boil is recommended. Hot side aeration only becomes an issue POST boil. At that point, you want to cool the wort as quickly as possible without introducing aeration. Once the wort is cool, aerate as much as possible to improve your yeast activity.

 

[patrck17]

Thanks for the responses guys. Vtfan what you said makes perfect sense and puts my fears to rest.

 

[vtfan99]

Thanks for the responses guys. Vtfan what you said makes perfect sense and puts my fears to rest.

Glad I could help.....and remember the saying....Relax, dont worry, have a homebrew Everything will be fine.

 

[Beer Snob]

Thanks from me to! That actually makes a lot of sense.

 

[Kaiser]

However I seem to remember something about pooring hot wort into anything will cause lots of oxidation and make the beer stale. If I do this step it will involve me basicly taking the wort off at around 165 degrees, pouring it through a strainer into a brew bucket, then pouring the wort back over the grains back into my brewpot, than sparging hot water over the grains.

This is actually something I was worried about too. My set-up for partial mashes was to mash the grain in a cooler and sparge it in a mylon-mesh bag that I put over my brew-pot. I was worried about the distance that the sparge run-off drops before it hits the bottom of the brew-pot. This worry came up once I noticed that my early brews seem to have a rather short shelf life of ~8 weeks.

In order to avoid this I did the following for my last extract w/ grain brew:
steeped the grains in 1 gal of water
heated another galon of water for sparging.
brought 3.5 gal of water to 170F in my brew-pot. This will avoid a far drop and purge most of the oxygen from the fresh water.
Once I was ready for sparging I added the nylon mesh over the brew-pot and sparged the grains. After this I had 5Gal of water and run-off in my brewpot and added the extract. It's more complicated and I don't know if it is actually necessary.

I also build myself a mash/lauter tun to user for my next partial mash and/or first AG batch.

When sparging, whether it be AG or partial mash, you do not need to worry about hot side aeration. Why? Because you will be boiling the wort after you sparge, so any absorbed oxygen will be boiled out, which is why a vigorous boil is recommended. Hot side aeration only becomes an issue POST boil. At that point, you want to cool the wort as quickly as possible without introducing aeration. Once the wort is cool, aerate as much as possible to improve your yeast activity

This is NOT correct. HSA mostly hapens during mashing and lautering. The problem is that the oxygen quickly reacts with compounds in the hot wort and. The resulting binding is week, but strong enough to keep the oxygen in the wort during boiling and fermentation. After time the oxygen is released and oxydizes the beer. The results are the same as aerating your beer.

Kai

 

[vtfan99]

I stand corrected.